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REPORT OF 

EDUCATION COMMITTEE 



OF THE 



Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubs 



AT 



MT. STERLING, JUNE 21, 1906 



''Public Schools of Kentucky'' 



By Mrs. Herbert W. Mengel. 



Higher Education in Kentucky" 



By Dean Irene T. Meyers. 



IX)UT8VH,IiE : 

GEO, G. FBTTBR COMPANY. 
1906. 



REPORT OF 

EDUCATION COMMITTEE 



OF THE 



Kentucky Federation of Women's Clubj 



AT 



MT. STERLING, JUNE 21, 1906 



''Public Schools of Kentucky" 



By Mrs. Herbert W. Mengel. 



"Higher Education in Kentucky" 



By Dean Irene T. Meyers. 



IiOUIBVILT.E : 

QKO. Q. FBTTER COMPANY. 
1906. 






Gift 
Author 



Ikcntuck^ jfct)eration of TOomen's Clubs. 



©fficers— 1906*1907. 

MRS. CHAS. P. WEAVER. 2406 Third Avenue, Louisville - - - President 

MRS. JAS. A. MITCHELL, Bowling Green .... First Vice.President 

MRS. MARY LOCKRIDGE, Mt. Sterling . . - - . Second Vice-President 

MISS LILLA BREED, 1026 Fourth Avenue, Louisville - - Corresponding Secretary 
MISS CAROLINE BERRY. Hamilton College, Lexington - - Recording Secretary 

MRS. LETCHER RIKER, Harrodsburg Treasurer 

MISS LUELLA BOYD, 1536 Greenup Street, Covington - - Federation Secretary 
MISS LILLIAN LINDSEY. Frankfort Auditor 



KENTUCKY FEDEKATIOX OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 



IReport of JCbucation Committee. 



41 ^ 4t 



MRS. C. P. BARNES. Chairman. 
DEAN IRENE T. MEYERS. Lexington. MISS M ARILLA W. FREEMAN. Louisville. 
MRS. GEO. C. AVERY. Louisville. MRS. HERBERT W. MENGEL Louisville 

MRS. WM. MYALL. Paris. MRS. JOHN B. CASTLEMAN. Louisville 



The work of the committee for the past year was a "Study of the Educa- 
jonal Status of Kentucky" along these lines: "Our Mountain Schools.' The 
^^uhhc Schools of Kentucky," "Higher Education in Kentucky," and "The 
Trained Librarian a Factor in Education." 

Resulting from this study, the Education Committee offered the following 

resolutions which were adopted by the State Federation: 
The Kentucky State Federation of Women's Clubs urges: 
1st. The formation of a School Improvement Committee in each club in 

che State for the purpose of studying the educational conditions and doing 

some practical work for school beUerment. 

.». /^- '^^^^ ^^^ election of school boards be divorced from politics and 
tnat public schools be placed beyond all political control. 

3d A more intimate knowledge of our institutions for higher education- 
and will also urge upon these institutions the adoption of uniform entrance 
requirements. 

4th. A continuance of the Library Extension in the mountains, and co- 
operation with the Kentucky Library Association. 

A further action was the order to print in pamphlet form the papers on 
Public Schools of Kentucky" and "Higher Education in Kentucky" for dis- 
tribution among clubs and friends interested in this vital question 



BEPORT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 



ipian of mov\{ for 1907» 



^^ ^ 



Your committee asks your serious consideration of the following out- 
line: 

First, tliat each club will form a strong Education Committee, willing 
to study thoroughly the situation in Kentucky and ready to co-operate in 
carefully planned work later in the year. 

Second, that you will give a place on your program to a study of the public- 
school system of Kentucky and the district trustee system, as given in the last 
report of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Study Kentucky's 
place in education, as reported in the last Census; study the need for gradetl 
schools in the rural districts; impress your legislators with the importance 
of separating the public schools from politics before the next Legislature; 
interest your local papers to write an editorial on "Public Schools in Ken- 
tucky" the first week in February, 1907; ask your ministers to preach on the 
question the Sunday following; get your lawyers to explain the laws gov- 
erning our public schools, also the violation of same; visit at least two 
tural schools in your county and note the conditions carefully. 

With an accurate knowledge of the situation — the causes and the rem- 
edy — the clubs of Kentucky will be ready for active co-operation with the 
Kentucky Educational Association, whose purposes are, first, to arouse in- 
terest in education and to insist upon the importance of every child being 
in school every day of the school term; second, to unite all the people of 
each community for the improvement of our public schools. 

Most earnestly presented, 

SARAH S. BARNES, Chairman. 



{Public Scbools of Ikentuch^. 

£v Are. tberbert TKH. ObenQel 
of XouisvUIe. 

About three yeai's ago, you will recall, there came to this country, upon 
the invitation of Mr. Mosely, a wealthy English philanthropist, some twenty- 
seven English educators and statesmen for the purpose of studying the edu- 
cation systems of our several States. Interest in our public-school system, 
it seems, had been most keenly aroused in England, because of the notable 
achievements of American engineers in the development of South Africa. 
It was men, trained in the technical schools of America, who first put mining 
in South Africa on a remunerative basis. It v/as men from American schools 
who built those wonderful bridges, so quickly and so surely that the world 
stood amazed. It was men from the same schools who, in the early stages 
of the Boer war, repaired the bridges of Natal as fast as they were destroyed; 
and those who looked on became impressed with the idea that such continued 
success could only be accounted for by the character of the education re- 
ceived in the United States. 

The report of the Mosely Commission, upon its return to England, is 
full of interesting criticism, one striking paragraph of which I wish to 
quote to you. Mr. Mosely says: 

"Looking into the future of our country, I feel bound to record my belief 
that the regime of the past, however successful it may have been, is 
obsolete. Honesty, doggedness, pluck, and many other good qualities pos- 
sessed by Britons, though valuable in themselves, are useless to-day, unless 
accompanied by practical, up-to-date, scientific knowledge, and such knowl- 
edge is possible only by a broad and enlightened system of education, such 
as the United States possesses. I feel that if we are to hold our position 
as the dominant nation — or one of the dominant nations — of the world, we 
can not afford to lag behind in educational matters, as we are now doing." 

Ladies and gentlemen, what Mr. Mosely has said of England we may 
fittingly apply to Kentucky. The pluck, the chivalry, the hospitality, and 
all the wonderful traits that have been so much heralded, though admirable in 
themselves, are useless to-day, unless accompanied by practical, up-to-date, 
scientific knowledge. If Kentucky is to be an essential and a creditable 
part of these United States, she can not afford to lag behind in educational 
matters, as she is now doing. 

Now, if Kentuckians have a fault, I fear it is supreme self-satisfaction — 
a fault that is unfortunately most paralyzing to progress. When members 
of this committee have discussed with friends the educational status of 
Kentucky, we have been remonstrated with most feelingly. You do not like 
to hear such things. It seems such rank disloyalty — almost sacrilege — to 
put Kentucky so far down the line. Occasionally, when we have asked 
for Kentucky's place in education, we have met this answer: "Why, she is 
first, of course; how could she be anything else?" And then, too, you have 



8 REPORT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

been inclined to attribute Kentucky's illiteracy to the colored population, 
but if you eliminate the colored population, Kentucky is no longer thirty- 
seventh, but forty-second, in the descending scale of education. And this 
difference is because we have calmly sat and let Virginia, Florida, Missis- 
sippi, Georgia and Arkansas slip in ahead of us on the list. 

Now, one of the reasons why some of these States, battling against con- 
ditions worse than our own, have been pushing ahead of us in this matter 
of education, is because some very much needed and very admirable legis- 
lation has been effected in behalf of the public schools; but another reason, 
and by no means the least important, is because the women of those States 
have become so keenly alive to the necessities of the situation. 

A few years ago, at a meeting held in the office of Governor Terrell, 
of Georgia, there was issued an address to the people of the State, and 
among other things, was said: 

"Realizing the strong devotion of the women of the State to the welfare 
of the children, we appeal to them to organize school improvement clubs 
in every county and locality." 

In July, 1904, an Educational Conference was held at Athens, at which 
the following resolution was adopted: "We appeal to the women of Georgia 
to organize School Improvement Clubs in every county and locality, in order 
that they may bring to bear, in behalf of educational matters and school 
buildings, those fine qualities and powers of womanhood that have made 
them so indispensable to the churches of the land." 

In response to this appeal there was among the women of Georgia a great 
outburst of enthusiasm that has carried them forward m an exhilarating 
rush of common effort. School Improvement Clubs were organized in every 
county and locality; but the work was by no means confined to these clubs, 
especially organized for that purpose. It was taken up by clubs and societies 
of various sorts. History Clubs, Current Events Clubs, Literature Clubs, the 
D. A. R.'s, the Daughters of the Confederacy, the Council of Jewish Women, 
and even some Sunday-School classes, all joined in this work for school 
betterment. Generally a club would adopt some poor little half-starved 
country school for which it should work, and, for the most part, they con- 
fined their efforts, first, to the clearing of school grounds, the laying out 
and planting of school gardens, and the distribution of seeds; second, to the 
collecting of pictures and the collecting of books and magazines, so that 
each school might have the nucleus of a permanent school library. 

In Virginia and North Carolina, too, the air is tingling with reform, 
and the stories of what has been done by their School Improvement Clubs 
read like the changes of the magician's hand. Here, too, especial attention 
is being paid to the rural schools, and so enthusiastically is the work being 
pushed that the editor of the Review of Reviews very opiimistically predicts 
that the time will soon come when rural education in ?N'ew England, New 
York, Pennsylvania, and some parts of the West, will have to come to 
North Carolina and Georgia to learn the best way of making the district 
school promote the best interests of country neighborhoods. It is said the 



KENTUCKY FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 9 

country schools of Georgia have so improved that city parents prefer to 
have their children educated in them than in the city. 

Now the reverse is true in Kentucky, and every year thousands of our 
best citizens are selling or renting their farms and moving to town in order 
to give their children the educational advantages which the country should 
afford. This menace to the agricultural interests of our Commonwealth can 
only be corrected bp giving better schools to the farmer's child. And you 
know Kentucky is an agricultural State and needs the educated farmer. 

I suppose you are aware that we are in the midst of the greatest educa- 
tional movement this country has even seen, not even being equalled by 
that crusade which Horace Mann started in Massachusetts some fifty years 
ago, and the strategic point of this whole movement seems to be the rural 
schools. Especially is this so in the South, where between eight-ninths and 
nine-tenths of the people are living in the rural districts, absolutely de- 
pendent upon the rural schools for education. To make these schools better 
in equipment and to make them take on the peculiar qualities that will 
best fit the children for their environment has become the end and aim of 
education. 

Of course there never was a time when the American people did not 
believe in education, but education has come to mean something more and 
something different from what it once did. The accumulation of unas- 
similated facts do not fit for life, and the sechool that aims at the well-filled 
instead of the well-formed brain does so at the expense of growth, and 
misses a rare opportunity. Gradually we are grasping this idea, that the 
accumulation of facts must be made subsidiary to a pupil's inward ordering, 
and this theory has so taken hold of the educational world, and is in turn 
so supported by public opinion, that the present revolution is in progress. 
Everywhere are schools adjusting themselves to their larger future and 
adapting themselves to local conditions. To secure, first, a moral person- 
ality, and, second, to secure effective power in action, has become the end 
and aim of education, and this problem, difficult as it is, is being worked 
out with gratifying results, and nowhere are results more gratifying than 
in certain rural districts. 

By way of illustration, let us note for a minute the rural schools of 
Canada. You know the Canadian government is gradually consolidating 
her rural schools, seeking to make them the best of their kind in the world. 
Over them she is placing especially trained instructors. In them she is 
making nature study central. A garden surrounds eve^y school-house as 
its appropriate setting. On additional plots are planted wheat, potatoes, 
clover, and corn, and everything that pertains to the garden and 
everything that pertains to the farm is closely observed and studied. 
The winter lessons include the chemical side of agriculture. The 
year around, there is manual training and household science, put- 
ting both boys and girls in possession of themselves, their hands and 
their eyes, and giving their reason and judgment a chance to develop, as 
well as their memory for rules and definitions. Let it not be supposed 



10 BEPOBT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

that the farm fence is to be the horizon or that books are discarded. Read- 
ing, writing and arithmetic are by no means neglected, and think how 
interesting the geography and the history and the botany become, pro- 
ceeding as they do from the observation of things at home. So far from 
culture being ignored, such a scheme as this gives culture a broader basis 
by developing the rich meaning of homely tasks and homely scenes. Canada, 
within the last six years, has made strides in agriculture and industry so 
amazing as to awaken het people to new hope. She sees that her new 
gains are largely due to better education, and she is keenly alive to the 
augmented power still better education stands ready to bestow. She is 
also keenly alive to the fact that "you can not use yesterday's machinery 
in to-day's work." 

Now, if better education can do so much for Canada, and make her 
progress one of the phenomenal things of the past decade, then better edu- 
cation can do the same for Kentucky, and certainly there is no greater field 
for work than right here in our own State. Moreover, if we went from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, we would find no better material with which 
to work. 

Last year this Education Committee of the State Federation sent out 
a list of questions to every woman's club in the State, requesting that an- 
swers be returned after a personal investigation of their schools. Grad- 
ually those answers came in, showing various degrees of carefulness in 
the consideration of the subjects. One thing, however, all of those clubs 
seemed to have in common, viz.: a too great satisfaction in the conditions 
as they exist. 

To be sure, the women's clubs are in tbe most progressive towns and 
cities that we have, and so the schools visited were undoubtedly the most 
progressive and up-to-date schools that we have, and yet they are by no 
means what they should be. 

In the first place, not one of those clubs reported that manual training 
had any part in the school curriculum; and yet all over the country the 
necessity of training the hand as a means of training tbe head is a well 
recognized fact. (Manual training in the high schools of Louisville is the 
exception in this case.) 

Not one of those clubs reported that physical culture holds any place in 
school life, and yet we know that a sound body is necessary for a sound 
mind. Now, how can you be satisfied when two such important factors in 
modern education are ignored by your schools? 

Not one of those clubs reported that there is an examination by their 
Board of Health of their school building, premises, teachers or pupils. And 
yet there is many and many a school building in a sanitary condition 
that would not be tolerated in the home. You can even find school-rooms 
where the same bucket of water and the same tin-cup (relics of barbarism) 
are still giving all of the children a drink and, incidentally, giving them 
several other things beside. And you can find many a school-room where 
atmosphere is the only cause for the number of clogged brains. 



KENTUCKY FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLtJBS. 11 

A club member who spent much time last winter visiting our various 
schools, remarked that she had been taking school air in broken doses, with 
a headache in every dose, and that if there is any one thing that public 
school teachers need to be taught it is the gospel of fresh air. 

Right at the present time there is a great deal of excitement over the 
prevention and cure of tuberculosis, and yet we have teachers in our schools 
in more or less advanced stages of the disease, and it needs only a medical 
examination to find many children similarly affected, and hundreds of others 
with sore eyes and sore throats and sundry other things, which they are 
passing gratuitously along the line. Now, how can you be satisfied when 
not even the health of your children is properly safeguarded by the necessary 
sanitary precautions? 

And how can you be satisfied when your school buildings and your 
school grounds are teaching, by the silent influence of environment, neither 
lessons of culture nor beauty? 

And how can you be satisfied when the men on your school boards are 
put there not because they are men of intelligence, or culture, or high aims 
for human progress, but because they have the necessary political pull or, 
maybe, the necessary political pliancy? 

A member of this committee once asked a member of a school board 
what possible interest a saloonkeeper, also a member of the board, could 
have in education, and the man replied: "Well, that's what I've been won- 
dering. He has nothing to sell, and, so far as I can see, he gets no good 
out of the position." Think of it! The idea seemed to be, not what good 
the man brought the position, but what good the position brought the man. 
Now you would not have to exert yourself very much to find others, mem- 
bers of your board, who took just such a personal view of their position'. 
Later, however, it was discovered that this saloonkeeper did have an interest 
in education, for he bought a school site for the board, for which his self 
appropriated commission was something like $2,000. Now, how can you be 
satisfied when you are not even getting what you pay for? 

But, perhaps, you are not satisfied — you are just indifferent. You say 
your children are in private schools, or you have no children, and so this 
question of public education does not interest you; but if you love your 
State; if you have any pride in it; if you have any ambition for it, then 
you can not let that, nor anything else, be an excuse for shirking your 
responsibility in this matter of education, which is getting to be more and 
more the rock upon which both society and government are founded. 

In spite, however, of these shortcomings, and some others for which 
we have no time, we do say that our town and city schools are compara- 
tively good, that they are improving, and there is no cause for the feeling 
of discouragement that arises, when we come to consider the schools of 
our rural districts. 

Now, four-fifths of the people of Kentucky are living in the rural districts, 
dependent upon the rural schools for education, and yet these schools are 



12 EEPOBT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

among the most inefficient and poorly equipped public schools in the United 
States. 

In the recent report of James H. Fuqua, Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, I find embodied the following statements, made three years ago 
by Prof. Cassidy, of Lexington, but as true to-day as they were then: 

"There are in Kentucky 1,238 old log school-houses, to say nothing of 
thousands of little plank boxes, nearly as unsightly and hardly as comfort- 
able. There are in Kentucky 2,107 schools without suitable seats and black- 
boards. Only think of nearly 100,000 of Kentucky's children, humped over 
on backless slab benches, shivering with the cold, in the full light of this 
twentieth century, while searching for the long-lost common divisor on a 
broken slate! There are 4,584 schools without globes, maps, charts and 
other educational aids. This is more than half the schools in the State." 

For one of these schools to have a school library is a thing undreamed 
of. The consolidation of several little schools into one good graded school 
is a thing unattempted, and yet consolidation is gradually getting to be an 
old story, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Wisconsin to the Gulf. 

Now, there is no better way of judging a people's attitude toward this 
question of education, and the value it places on the training of the chil- 
dren, than to look at the school-houses, and certainly the school-houses of 
Kentucky tell a pitiful and a shameful story. Why, the barns in which the 
farmers shelter their stock are better and more comfortable than the houses 
in which their children are trained for citizenship. The work that has to 
do with mind and soul and body, with the shaping of character and the 
making of ideals, is carried on in buildings that are tumble-down and 
dilapidated. It is said that there is not a county in the State that has not 
a costlier and more comfortable jail than any rural school-house found 
within it. The ugly, desolate school-house, and the substantial, comfortable, 
awe-inspiring jail, I suppose, follow each other in natural sequence as 
cause and effect. 

And what sort of teachers do you find in these school-houses? Well, 
much the sort that you would naturally expect to find in a ramshackle 
building. You can not get an improved teacher for meagre pay, and to say 
the pay of our country school teachers is meagre is putting it mildly. And 
you can not get an improved teacher, at any price, to go into an uncom- 
fortable, unsightly and unhealthy school building. 

Now, the law of Kentucky says that schools shall be provided with suit- 
able seats and blackboards, and provided with such educational aids as 
maps, charts, etc., and yet this law is utterly disregarded by more than 
half the trustees in the Commonwealth. That alone is sufficient proof of 
the utter inefficiency of the trustee system. For many years Kentucky 
has been encumbered with 25,000 school trustees. It is a matter of record 
that 5,000 of these can neither read nor write, and 10,000 more have abso- 
lutely no conception of their duties or their responsibilities. It is such men 
who have the disposition of t'v^o and a half million dollars of school money 
annually. 



KENTUCKY FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 18 

One of the most important bills up before the Legislature in recent 
years \vas that providing for the abolition of the district trustee system and 
the substitution for it of a system that will make the county the school 
unit as it is the political unit. Just why this bill, that is of such vital 
importance, was defeated last year is best known to the powers that be. 
For twenty-five years this army of school trustees has been tolerated, and 
with disastrous results. You may write this down as the principal reason 
for the present illiteracy of our State, and we can see no hope ahead until 
we have gotten rid of this incubus and put in its place small, capable and 
responsible county boards. If this is done quickly, perhaps the next census, 
in 1910, will give us a better record than did the last. If this is not done 
quickly, the inevitable will happen — we will not even be thirty-seventh in 
the descending scale of education. 

The next most important thing to be done, if the illiteracy of our State 
is to be decreased, is the enforcement of a compulsory education law. Sta- 
tistics show that 22 per cent, of the white children of Kentucky between 
the ages of ten and fourteen, are not in school, and nearly 50 per cent, of 
the children of school age are not in school. We are sorry to have to claim 
quite a portion of this delinquency for Louisville, but the condition is 
prevalent all over the State. Recently two schools have come to our especial 
notice — one, in a district having sixty-seven children of school age, has an 
average attendance of only twelve; another, in a district having fifty-six 
children of school age, has not a child in attendance. That school receives 
its appropriation based on fifty-six children. The teacher sits up in soli- 
tary grandeur without a child. Now it needs no great powers of insight 
to know that there is something wrong there, not only with the school, 
but with the parents. 

Now, ladies and gentlemen, what do all these facts and figures mean? 
They mean, first of all, that we must get to work, not in any spirit of ex- 
cited strenuousness, for that always arouses mistrust and antagonism, but 
calmly, energetically and unitedly for better things. If we do not, the 
chances are that we will be left so far behind that we will become a drag 
on the nation. 

The question has been asked, Why has not the Southern Education 
Association and the General Education Board, with its $10,000,000 Rockefeller 
fund at its disposal, helped us when we need help so much? Well, simply 
for one reason, and one reason only — we have shown no disposition to help 
ourselves. 

Unfortunately, we have inherited here in Kentucky a feeling that it 
makes not much difference how the masses are trained, so long as the few 
are cultured, and so we have remained indifferent to the education of the 
many and boasted of the culture of the few; and yet, just as the training 
of the individual is necessary to his success in life, so is the training of the 
many necessary for the life of the community. No State can rise above 
the level of her average man, and every untrained man lowers her moral 
and economic efficiency. 



14 REPORT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

What Kentucky needs is a great educational revival among her people. 
There is no cottage in the State too humble to help along this agitation 
for better schools, more schools, better teachers, better methods, better 
school boards; and there is not a man or woman here who can not bring 
to bear, in behalf of these educational matters, those fine qualities of mind 
and heart that have helped to make Kentucky famous. 



IbiQber le^ucation in IRentuck^. 

ffis E>r. IFrene TT. /IDe^ers, 
Dean of IRentucfti? "Dlnivcrslt?. 

OUR EDUCATIONAL PYRAMID. 

We are all familiar with the figure of the pyramid, under which our 
system of education is so frequently symbolized. Its base is our public and 
private schools, graded and ungraded. Public and private secondary schools 
or High Schools, Normal and Technical Schools and Colleges raise the struc- 
ture step by step, and at the top stands the University. Primary, secondary 
and higher institutions mark so many progressive steps in the same system. 
They are mutually dependent; they are so inter-related that the weakness 
of one portion implies the weakness or inefficiency of the whole. 

This, in brief, is our national ideal of education; it is in accordance with 
this ideal that those States which have made the greatest progress have 
worked out their system of schools. 

My province is to bring before you what Kentucky has done in fashion- 
ing one portion of this pyramidal structure — that which we name the higher 
education. It must, however, be apparent to any one that the higher edu- 
cation depends upon the secondary and the primary. The height of the 
pyramid depends upon the number and extent of the steps which lie between 
it and the base; its stability, its permanence, its character, indeed, depend 
upon the quality of the building below it. I can not, therefore, talk of 
higher education in Kentucky without making direct connection with the 
form of education which precedes it. 

DEFINITION OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 

One other introductory word I must speak, and that is in definition of 
what I mean by higher education. I have used it in its broadest sense, and 
applied it to that education which follows upon a high-school training. It 



KENTUCKY FEDEBATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 15 

may be a college education. It may be of a professional or a technical 
character. In the case of a woman there is still a third possibility— she 
may enter the so-called "finishing" school. But this is only a possibility; 
there are so few of these schools, which, even by the most generous esU- 
mate of their work, can be considered within the pale of higher education, 
that I shall leave them out of this discussion. Usually they will take 
students who are not prepared to enter a high school, and frequently their 
training does not equal that of the high school in its disciplinary value. 
It seems more nearly accurate, however, to class them with secondary schools 
than with institutions of higher learning. 

THE BASE OF OUR PYRAMID. 

It requires only a brief survey of the conditions in Kentucky to con- 
vince an unprejudiced student that if we have an educational pyramid at all 
it is unsymmetrically constructed. There is no nice fitting of part to part; 
there are places where the structure is ragged and incomplete, and the 
apex— the University— has yet to be adjusted. It, indeed, never can be 
safely and permanently adjusted until the defects in the sub-structure are 
remedied. Let us consider from two points of view the schools which make 
up this sub-structure: 

First— We learn from the report of the Commissioner of Education for 
the year 1903 (the last one issued) that the average number of days at- 
tended by each pupil enrolled in the public schools of Kentucky was 55.6. 
In Florida it was 70.9; in Georgia, 73; in West Virginia, 70.4; in Ohio, 112.2; 
in Illinois, 124.6; in California, 129.7; in Massachusetts, 148.9. In' short, 
among all the States and Territories which make up our Nation there was 
but one with a worse record in this respect than Kentucky- the average 
in Oklahoma being 55.5. 

This humiliating condition can not be explained upon the hypothesis 
that Kentucky enrolls a larger percentage of pupils in private schools than 
are enrolled by the other States. According to the same report, only Flor- 
ida and West Virginia, among the States mentioned, fall lower than Ken- 
tucky in the percentage of pupils in private schools. 

Interpreted into another form, these statistics mean that the average 
pupil in Kentucky must attend school more than six and one-half years 
before he receives one full year of instruction. If he has started to school 
when six years of age, he will then be in his thirteenth year. In so many 
instances— indeed, in the majority— this is the sum total of the education 
which Kentucky gives. I submit to you, ladies, that one year— 365 days- 
is a very meagre portion of life to be spent in the school-room. It may 
be argued that, while this statement is true with reference to the public 
schools, it is not equally true of the private schools. I grant it, but I call 
your attention to the small proportion of pupils enrolled in the private 
schools. The masses of our people send their children to the free schools, 
and the intelligence of our future citizenship will be determined by the 



16 EEPOKT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

character of the education which the State provides. There is not one of 
us who can afford to say, "I have no personal interest in this matter. I ~ 
shall see to it that my own children have the best advantages in private 
schools, and that is as far as my duty goes." Is it? Your children are 
part of a society which is all the time becoming more democratic. We 
would not have it otherwise, but a democracy can not rise higher than the 
attainment of its average citizen. Your children are in a minority — a small 
minority — and it is the average attainment which gives Kentucky her stand- 
ing as a State. More than this, it is the average citizen who sets the 
standard of effort, who develops the ideal of the Commonwealth — intellectual, 
social, economic, moral — and, although your child may rise above it, he will 
be continually weighed down by the conditions about him. The only suc- 
cessful future for the individual in a democracy lies in the steady pull of 
the whole people towards higher things. Some statistics recently compiled 
by Superintendent Mark, of Louisville, illustrate my meaning from the 
economic side. I commend them to you. He found that for every $1.00 
expended for educational purposes in Kentucky, Indiana expended $1.49, 
Ohio $1.87. On the other hand, for every $1.00 earned by the inhabitant 
of Kentucky, the inhabitant of Indiana earned $1.57; he of Ohio, $1.75. 

Secondly — In the thirty-two years between 1870 and 1902 the increase 
in school expenditure per capita of total population in Kentucky has been 
.39; in Georgia, .72; in Florida, .74; in V\/'est Virginia, 1.09; in Ohio, 1.13; 
in Massachusetts, 1.37; in Illinois, 1.39; in California, 2.29. Kentucky has 
not shown a tendency to increase her expenditure for schools in a way at 
all comparable to that of the other States which have been cited. 

EFFECT ON HIGHER EDUCATION. 

Do you ask why I refer to these facts, when my subject is "Higher Edu- 
cation in Kentucky"? It is because they have such a direct bearing upon 
higher education. If the base of the pyramid is fragile, it can not uphold 
a heavy superstructure; if parts of it are missing, the top may tumble. 
You can not safely build high unless you have laid firmly your foundation. 
Some of the institutions for higher education in Kentucky have recognized 
this, and have felt compelled to give a portion of their time to strengthening 
the foundation. Others have built light and unsubstantial structures upon 
it, but with these it is not worth while to linger, because they are neces- 
sarily ephemeral. This much is clear: the colleges of Plentucky which have 
met the conditions have had not only to supplement the work of the primary 
school, but to bridge over the chasm between the primary school and the 
college, for in secondary schools Kentucky is very weak. 

DEARTH OF HIGH SCHOOLS IN KENTUCKY. 

There is no question as to the accuracy of this statement, but it is a 
difficult one to discuss, because it seems im.possible to obtain any definite 
data concerning our secondary schools. So far as I have been able to ascer- 



KENTUCKY FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 17 

tain, no report has been made of the number and character of public high 
schools in the State. They are not dealt with in the last biennial report 
of the State Superintendent. I have not been able — and I have tried — to 
obtain any information on this subject from the department of education 
at Frankfort. By individual school-men whom I have consulted, who under- 
stand the condition of public education in the State, I have had reported 
twelve high schools, and not all of these are of first rsuk. Furthermore, 
the few high schools we have can not all of them be said to be parts of a 
system of education; they are not so regarded by the public, and they do 
not so regard themselves; and yet no State has ever succeeded in building 
up even its primary schools until it has brought them into relation with 
high schools; or its high schools until it has brought them into relation 
with its colleges. So far as our colleges are concerned, indeed, they must 
interest themselves in all efforts to improve secondary schools. It does 
not matter whether the college is State or denominational, its growth is 
dependent upon the development of the State's secondary schools as truly 
as the bluegrass is dependent upon the soil. There is a mistaken impression 
that Kentucky is full of young men and young women prepared to enter 
college, and that all that is necessary is for us to send out some agent to 
persuade them to come in. The truth is that we have to get them ready 
after they come; that many become discouraged and drop out because they 
lack preparation, and that many remain only through the preparatory period. 
This is not the material out of which a college is builded. 

If some uniform regulation were enforced, by which seven years of 
primary school training brought the pupil to the fii'st year of the high 
school, and four years of high-school training met the uniform entrance 
requirement of the colleges, then the colleges of Kentucky might be doing 
the work which is rightfully theirs; but this is not the condition. 

LOW STANDARD OF PRIVATE HIGH SCHOOLS. 

Nor Is the work of the private secondary schools, except in a few in- 
stances, articulated with that of the higher institutions. They also have 
existed as independent schools, as part of no system of education, looking 
neither forward to higher nor backward to lower institutions. They have 
consequently felt no compulsion to hold their work up to a definite standard, 
and have not exercised any influence towards raising the standard of the 
primary schools. Too frequently these secondary schools have ranked them- 
selves as colleges, when their work has not been equal to that of a first- 
call high school. Such schools as these have been, and are, sending out 
graduates who think that they have been in institutions of higher education, 
and who consequently innocently perpetuate a low standard for such 
education. 

I wish to repeat that Kentucky is peculiarly weak in secondary schools. 
Take the matter of private schools for girls, at least one of which is to be 
found in almost every town in the State. I have been able to learn of but 



18 EEPOKT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

three whose certificates will admit young women to the freshmen year of 
colleges of first rank. This fact, taken in connection with the other fact 
that there is no accessible high school where she can be prepared, makes 
it something of a problem as to what the young girl shall do who would 
enter college. Parents who look upon a four-years' absence with some de- 
gree of equanimity, will not agree to the eight years which are necessary 
if she must obtain her preparation, as well as her college training, away 
from home. Further, parents who are financially able to support their 
daughters through a four-years' course, do not feel able to continue it 
through an additional four years. In consequence, what they look upon 
as a compromise is made, and the girl is sent to some institution so elastic 
in its entrance requirements that all are welcome, and so flexible in its 
graduation requirements that four years at most — usually two years — are 
all that are needed in which to turn out a finished product. 

I do not wish to be understood as thinking that there is no place Cor 
this sort of unclassified and unclassifiable school, which is both primary 
and secondary, and has numerous attachments which are sometimes thought 
to give it the flavor of a higher institution; but I do wish to be understood 
as advocating the utmost frankness of statement on the part of these in- 
stitutions, the utmost accuracy in grading their work, lest they assist in 
blurring our standards and confusing our ideas. There will always be 
large numbers of people, I suppose, who wish for their daughters just the 
sort of education offered in these schools, and large numbers of daughters 
who are peculiarly adapted to it, so that the patronage of these schools 
will not vanish if they make a definite and unvarnishel statement of the 
work they do. I do plead for increased opportunities for the young people 
who wish to receive adequate college preparation, and who, in so many 
instances, instead of bread, are receiving stones. At the same time, I look 
forward eagerly to the day when the colleges of Kentucky will cut off their 
preparatory departments and will concentrate their energies upon the col- 
legiate work. It is not their province to supply the place of secondary 
schools, and they have been endeavoring to do it. On the other hand, they 
have been neglecting their real duty of uplifting the standards of such 
schools. 

EFFECT UPON PROFESSIONAL AND TECHNICAL SCHOOLS. 

The inadequacy of our facilities for secondary education has especial 
bearing upon the professional and technical schools of tue State. It is 
generally conceded that the student who would become a civil engineer, 
or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a minister, or a teacher, should have laid his 
foundation in at least a high-school education. Of course, we' all know that 
in the world at large more and more emphasis is being placed upon the 
thoroughness with which this foundation is laid. Indeed, the day is not 
far distant when the man who has taken his special training without having 
previously developed his powers by a liberal education will have no chance 



KENTUCKY FEDEBATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 19 

to succeed. We do not now listen without protest to a minister who in bad 
English hands out to us the dry husks of outgrown creeds, or who has no 
perspective in his view of existing conditions, and can give no intelligent 
help towards the solving of present-day problems. The demands of his 
position are forcing him more and more towards a liberal, not necessarily 
a theological, education. 

We are loth to place our lives in the hands of a physician who mechan- 
ically doles out his doses according to the directions he has memorized. 
We are demanding that he shall have had years of the sort of training 
which will awaken and strengthen his powers, which will give him control 
over himself and, in that way, understanding and control over others; we 
are demanding of him in his diagnoses the skill of the psychologist, because 
we are recognizing that he must minister so frequently to the "mind 
diseased." 

In a greater or less degree the necessity of a liberal education is being 
pressed upon every individual who would establish himself in the other 
professions. And how are the young men and women of Kentucky to meet 
this pressure? A large proportion do not have access even to a good graded 
school; a far larger proportion do not have access to any institutions of 
high-school grade. 

Moreover, the majority of these students are unwilling or unable to go 
away from home for several years' work in a preparatory school or college 
before they enter upon their professional training. If the opportunity to 
enter a public high school were open to them at home, the professional 
schools would undoubtedly receive students betted fitted to take up their 
work. Still, I believe that the insistence upon adequate preparation must 
come from above. The students who wish to enter do not know how much 
they lack; they do not know that without a liberal education they are 
starting in life's race with a heavy handicap. Their dominant idea is "I 
must save money and gain time," and it seems to their inexperienced eyes 
that this is being done if they can jump from the primary school into the 
professional. It is here that the professional school must itself come to their 
rescue and, by establishing a proper entrance requirement, give them a 
fair chance to start right. 

There are in Kentucky a goodly number of professional schools. In 
Louisville alone there are over two thousand students in schools of this 
character, and some of them are making an effort to establish a standard 
for admission. At no time is this effort unattended by difficulties, and they 
are multiplied where, as in Kentucky, endowments are small or altogether 
wanting. The schools think that they must live, and since they depend for 
support upon the number of their students, they are not likely to be over- 
critical as to the qualifications of these students. If one school raises its 
standard and another does not, the chances are that the students will flock 
to the one where entrance is easy. At any rate, many of the schools are 
afraid to run the risk, and so they continue in a vicious circle — the un- 
trained students dragging down the standard of the schools, and the low 



20 REPORT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

entrance requirements in the schools encouraging a continuation of the same 
lack of preparation on the part of the students. 

* * !ll * * 

At least one result of these conditions is apparent: our young men and 
women, inadequately educated here, as they are, for their various occupa- 
tions, can not measure up to the standard which is being set for the future 
leaders of our nation. And it seems a pity— does it not?— that Kentucky 
should no longer rank among the first of the States in contributing to our 
national life. But it is true even now that she does not, and it will be more 
bitterly true as the years go by, if she does not turn her attention more closely 
to the education of her people. 

DEAN SHALER'S PROPHECY. 

Eleven years ago, Dean Shaler, of Harvard University, himself a Ken- 
tuckian, wrote of Kentucky: "The educational problem is by far the most 
serious of all the difficulties before this State. The neglect of education 
has gone so far that it jeopardizes the future influence of the people in 
the affairs of the nation. Hitherto the natural talents of the people, given 
then by the admirable accidents of selection that secured to the Common- 
wealth the most vigorous blood of America, have served them well, have 
enabled them to keep a permanent place in all the arts of war and peace. 
As long as the native strength of this people, unhelped by training, was 
matched against equally untrained people from the other Western States, 
there was no State in the Mississippi Valley that had anything like the 
power of giving able men for all needs that was manifested in Kentucky. 
This is seen in the history of legislation, trade, and war in the decades of 
this century down to the war of the Rebellion. In the war Kentucky pro- 
duced more good soldiers than any other equal population of the West, 
and at the present moment she has a larger number of her sons in important 
public positions; but these men, with rare exception, have owed their pro- 
motion to the gifts of nature, unhelped by education. The time when men 
can win without the aid of training is rapidly passing away. It can hardly 
be hoped that the native talent of this people will enable them much longer 
to keep the lead in the race for dominion. In another generation they will 
certainly be left behind by their less well-endowed but more aptly-trained 
competitors, unless they meet the needs of education with the same courage 
and self-sacrifice with which they have faced the other dangers and diffi- 
culties of their development." 

Who can deny that the words of this honored son of Kentucky are the 
words of a friend? And who can say that his prophecy is not already being 
fulfilled? Kentucky has superb material in its young men and women. They 
have strong physiques, and strong, fine minds, and clear, clean ideas of 
what is honorable; but, because this State has stood still while others have 
moved forward, because it has been self-satisfied while others have been 
eagerly learning, these young men and women are unprepared to compete 
with their fellows. 



KENTUCKT FEDEBATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 21 

THE DENOMINATIONAL INFLUENCE IN KENTUCKY. 

When we examine the educational condition in Kentucky, in so far as it 
is represented by the colleges, we meet with a remarkable situation. She 
has reversed the process which the older States have for the most part 
gone through in making their educational history. She, in common with 
the other older States, raised the cap-stone of her educational pyramid (in 
the old Transylvania University) before she looked after her foundation. 
But she went further than the others in that she also outlined a system 
of secondary education. Both of these were to be provided for by the State. 
In contrast, the contemporaneous history of higher education in the other 
States shows that it was in the beginning under denominational control. 
Their later history shows them emerging from that control, either into 
State or into non-denominational institutions. Their secondary and pri- 
mary schools developed also under the control of the State. 

On the other hand, Kentucky moved in the opposite direction; she 
abandoned her plan of State provision for secondary education; further, 
the Transylvania was made at the same time a State institution and under 
denominational control — ^an arrangement by which the responsibility of the 
State was lessened and the opportunity was opened for denominational jeal- 
ousy. One after another different denominations had their turn in its 
management, and one after another they withdrew to build up their own 
institutions and to make of them centers of competition with the university 
for public loyalty and public patronage. Still other denominations, emulat- 
ing their example, erected their institutions. Dissatisfied elements in de- 
nominations already represented, started other institutions, until, in 1847, 
Collins tells us in his "Sketches" that Kentucky had more colleges than 
any other State in the Union. They had small endowment, or none at all, 
and they were lacking in equipment. They drew away support from the 
central institution, and at the same time they were so numerous that they 
could not be adequately supported. Kentucky is strewn with the wrecks 
of these institutions, but she still had, according to "Lewis' Monograph on 
Higher Education in Kentucky" (issued by the U. S. Bureau of Education 
in 1899), fifteen institutions of higher education. In the Commissioner of 
Education's report of 1903 she has eleven. These figures do not include pro- 
fessional schools or the so-called colleges for girls. If these statistics are 
to be relied upon, we are gradually tending towards consolidation, or at 
least towards a concentration of our support upon a smaller number of in- 
stitutions. In my opinion this is a step forward, but we move very slowly. 

Our present condition is this: Nominally, in so far as Kentucky has a 
system of education, it leads through primary and secondary schools to 
State College. Practically, it leads in many other directions as well — for 
Baptist youths to a Baptist college, for Presbyterian youths to a Presby- 
terian college, for Christian youths to a Christian college, for Methodist 
youths to a Methodist college. So far as I know, the Episcopalians have 
been impartially distributed. Of course this statement as to patronage is 



22 EEPORT OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

not exact when we regard each individual student, but it is correct as to 
the general tendency. There is also a sectional line of cleavage, and for the 
most part, the mountain youths will be found in a mountain college. 

TOO MANY POORLY-EQUIPPED INSTITUTIONS. 

It is frequently said by those of kindly heart, who cultivate good will 
towards all, that there is room for every one of these institutions. You 
will pardon me for saying that this seems to me to be a superficial judgment. 
There is room for just as many as the people of Kentucky will equip and 
support. When we add together the number of students in academic work 
in all of these colleges we have a smaller number than are to be found in 
great State or undenominational institutions elsewhere. And if we should 
subtract from our sum total the number of our students who are really 
doing preparatory work in the colleges, we should see that we are enacting 
an educational tragedy which has also some of the characteristics of a 
farce. We are not killing outright the spirit of progress, but we are sapping 
its vitality. We are placing our young men and women in institutions whose 
equipment can not, because of the very nature of the conditions, equal that 
of institutions in other States. I agree with the people who contend that 
for many reasons the small college is a desirable place in which! to be 
educated, but it should have laboratories, and libraries, and museums at its 
command. The day has gone by when the teacher at one end of a log and 
the pupil at the other constitute a college. We must be doing things in 
college; we must be exercising our own powers, not simply receiving in- 
struction and coming in contact with fine personalities. To these things 
the others have been added. 

I am familiar with the condition in one section of Kentucky, where, 
within a radius of fifty miles, six of her institutions of higher education are 
largely duplicating one another's work. And when I realize that in my own 
department its efficiency might be multiplied by six if the.se institutions were 
consolidated, and that the same statement might be made with reference 
to at least a number of the other departments, I feel that we are responsible 
for a criminal dissipation of our energies. 

CONSOLIDATION OR CO-OPERATION. 

I am not so visionary as to suppose that such a consolidation can be 
brought about by the mere speaking of a word, but I do believe that those 
who have the interests of Kentucky at heart should face and understand 
the situation, and be ready to encourage, and to initiate if need be, an effort 
to improve it. 

Let me illusTrate what the present condition means, in addition to this 
poverty of resource to which I have referred. In my own college, in a de- 
partment where the work is thought to be heavy, I know of two instances 
of students holding over the professor the direful threat that unless he re- 



KENTUCKY FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS. 23 

laxed his requirements they would transfer their allegiance to an institution 
where less was demanded of them. It is true that this had no influence, and 
that the students remained where they were, but it is not impossible that 
such a threat should exercise an influence over an institution which must 
point to its numbers in justification of its existence. Further, if this rivalry 
does not modify the quality of the work which is done in the colleges, it 
has, I believe, exercised a strong influence in keeping down the standard 
for entrance; the number of students is swelled by the admission of those 
who are unprepared, and it is difficult, since numbers mean so much, to turn 
any away, or even to insist upon adequate preparation after they have come. 
It does not take a college professor to see that such a situation is unfavor- 
able to the best interests of higher education. 

Not only so, but it is unfavorable to the best interests of secondary edu- 
cation. As I said before, it has seemed necessary for the colleges to main- 
tain their own preparatory schools, but along with this necessity should 
have come the responsibility to make of them first-class schools, and the 
still further responsibility of refusing to accept inferior work from other 
preparatory schools. If the colleges do not meet this responsibility — and 
they have not done so — they are an actual hindrance to the growth of sec- 
ondary schools in the State, when they should be the strongest influence 
towards raising their standards. 

Again, while it has seemed necessary for the colleges to maintain their 
preparatory schools, this very circumstance has in a measure isolated them 
and made against the growth of an articulated system of education. If the 
experience of other States counts for anything, we may assume that it is 
only through an articulated system that a definite standard of scholarship 
can be obtained, and it is only through such a system that the steady raising 
of that standard is possible. I would conclude, then, that our first step 
must be towards co-operation and organization; co-operation of the higher 
institutions with one another — ^co-operation, not competition; co-operation 
of the higher institutions with the lower in the effort to develop a system 
of education. It is true that in this way we may reduce the number of our 
so-called colleges, for if the high school of thc^ State were fostered, the prepar- 
atory departments in connection with our colleges would close for lack of 
students; and if the preparatory departments closed, some of our colleges 
might vanish. But would not this be well? Would it not be an advance 
upon our present condition? Those which were needed would survive, while 
the others would die, or so be modified that they would meet an existing 
need. 

IN CONCLUSION. 

And now, ladies, I have brought before you some conditions which I wish 
were otherwise than as they are; I have brought them before you because 
you are a body influential in creating public sentiment, and, however un- 
pleasing they may be, I have no apology to make for enumerating them. I 
do not think that it is the part of wisdom to close our eyes to things as they 



24 EEPOET OF EDUCATION COMMITTEE OF THE 

actually exist. We never can make the progress we should make until we 
are willing to acknowledge our shortcomings. We never can supplement 
our present inadequate efforts, unless we bravely face the fact that they 
are inadequate. 

Furthermore, I do not believe that we are acting the part of good citizens; 
that we are showing a real loyalty to our Commonwealth, or a real love 
for our institutions, if we blindly assert that they are altogether good be- 
cause they are ours, and refuse to subject them to unfavorable criticism. 
Preliminary to any step in educational progress here in Kentucky is our 
recognition that beyond our borders are better institutions than we have 
at home. When we have gone thus far, it will be strange if the love of Ken- 
tuckians for Kentucky, if their pride in their State and their loyalty to it 
will not be concentrated in a united, persistent, steady, intelligent demand 
that young men and young women shall have here at home opportunities 
at least equal to those offered elsewhere. 



/;V^H 28 1908 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



022 165 547 3 J 



